We explain Sweden
If you’ve arrived in Sweden on a visa that doesn’t allow for you to obtain a personal number, all is not lost. It can be a challenge to access certain services, such as banking, the library, and signing up for a gym. With a little effort and the right provider, you can not only survive […]
In my last Newbie post, I shared the reasons I chose to learn Swedish (if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do). After weeks of living in Stockholm, I was tired of apologizing for my lack of Swedish language skills. I needed to make a change, so I enrolled in a twice-weekly class. […]
I’ve been living in Sweden for a few months now and while I am far from fluent I have heard more than my fair share of Swedish and have begun stumbling through pronouncing a few sentences of my own. While Swedish bears remarkable similarities to English, German and the other Scandinavian languages, it is a […]
Don’t speak a single word of Swedish yet? No problem! Everyone speaks English (but all the signs are in Swedish) ‘Is this a cucumber or a zucchini??’ I wondered, as I tried my best to figure out the Swedish on the label. After standing in front of the produce for an embarrassingly long time, I […]
The other day I received a request for language courses. The email started off with Respected Madame. This made me laugh. At that moment, I had just locked myself in the bathroom to escape my children – and to check my email, and I was trying to shut out the banging on the door. So […]
In the first few weeks that I lived in Stockholm, I started every conversation the same way: with a perplexed look while uttering the phrase I’m sorry, I don’t speak Swedish. From sales clerks to receptionists, I have apologized to pretty much everyone in the city. After my one-millionth apology in a three-week span (a […]
Sweden-a country somewhere in the far north, often and easily confused with Switzerland, is not a place people know much about. My knowledge about Sweden improved before coming here as my husband was here a couple of times before we moved. And of-course, I browsed through the internet a lot. However, there are always things […]
I started learning Swedish six months ago and during this learning experience, I have defined some milestones for me. I will accept myself fluent in Swedish when I check all these milestones! Jaha This one is relatively easy but it is a good first milestone. “Jaha” is fun to say, so when I first learned […]
Swedish, like any other language, is filled with expressions that obviously have some kind of origin and that probably made sense to the first person ever to speak them. Today, however, these are so wide-spread, maybe even altered a bit, so that they sound like plain nonsense to Swedish learners and when asking a Swede […]
Getting used to living in another country can be quite difficult and you might be making some mistakes. Swedes have some “rules” that no one tells you about, but can do wrong many times. Are you doing something wrong? Paying in cash Sweden has the most beautiful banknotes in the world (literally), yet they actually don’t really want you […]